Summer slipped her phone out of her purse. No bars. Still. She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt this isolated.Hell of a place for a second home, she thought. And the fact that Quentin’s mother had loved it here... Well, Summer didn’t necessarily know if that was true. Reg Sharkey had been the one to say that Quentin’s mother had loved it here, and he wasn’t the most reliable of narrators.
“Are you lost?”
Summer glanced up to see the waitress standing over her, a look in her eye like they’d drawn straws back in the kitchen and she was the loser.
“No.” Summer tried smiling. “I’m not lost.”
“Your car break down?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Just hoping for a piece of key lime pie.”
“Usually, when a stranger comes here, they’re either lost or broken down.”
“Sounds like the lyrics to a country song.”
The waitress frowned at her. “Key lime pie, huh?”
Summer nodded, the conversation officially over.
When the waitress returned, though, she decided to try again. “Look, I’m working on a story for the radio,” she said. Careful to leave NPR out of it, lest it start some political argument. “I’m looking into a very old story. From the ’70s. And I was wondering if you might be able to help me with it.” Summer peered at her name tag. “Lena. That’s a pretty name.”
One of the old guys at the counter said, “The ’70s isn’t a very old story.”
The waitress ignored him. “It’s short for Marlene,” she said. “I was named for Dietrich.”
“I’m Summer. Named for my least favorite season.”
This time she got a chuckle out of her. Lena took the seat across from her. “I’ll try and help,” she said. The ’70s aficionado slid off his counter stool and sauntered over, as Summer slipped her notepad out of her purse, trying to make out her own scrawl. “Okay,” she said. “If you could just tell me if you know a Nicola Crane, a Renee White, or a Bill or William Grumley.”
The waitress smiled. “Well, I know a Grumley, that’s for sure.”
“You do? You know where I can find him?”
She started to laugh, Mr. ’70s joining in. “Honey, if you don’t mind my saying, for a reporter, you’re not all that observant.”
“Huh?”
“Two doors down from here,” the old man said. “The general store. It’s called Grumley’s. Helllooo?” He said it like some teen wiseass on a Nickelodeon show. He knocked on his own head. “Anybody in there?”
“No need to be rude, Freddy,” the waitress said. “The store’s owned now by Bill Grumley’s son, Stephen. Bill passed away about five years ago.”
“He was one of my closest friends,” Freddy said. “We drove cross-country one summer on our Harleys.”
“That’s awesome,” Summer said. “I’m wondering, though, if you knew Bill when he ran a foster home?”
He frowned at her. “Bill didn’t run a foster home.”
“Wait, what?”
“Nah. He had five kids of his own. They were enough trouble.”
“That’s weird. A woman told my colleague that as a kid, she’d lived in a foster home run by Bill Grumley.”
“She?” Lena said.
“Bill had boys,” Freddy said. “Nothin’ but loudmouthed, troublemaking boys in that house. Their poor mom...”
“Oh, Freddy, you remember.” Lena looked at Summer “You’re talking about the ’70s, right?”
